Annual Report on the World’s Worst Religious Freedom Abusers Comes with a New Twist

The United States underutilizes the mechanisms put in place by the International Religious Freedom Act. That needs to change.

by Knox Thames and Elizabeth Cassidy

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued its 15th annual report today, and this year we decided to do something different.

USCIRF was established in 1998 when Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the International Religious Freedom Act. Since then, we’ve issued a report each year highlighting the world’s worst religious freedom abusers andrecommending constructive ways the U.S. government can spur nations toward reform. USCIRF looks to international standards to define religious freedom, which includes the individual right to believe (or not) and to act on those beliefs peacefully and without coercion through worship, speech, dress, teaching, and observance.

Here’s where the report differs from prior years: we examine the past decade-and-a half of U.S. foreign policy relating to religious freedom and propose ways to reenergize and reposition the United States to promote this universal right more effectively across the board.

We see at least two problems with today’s status quo on this issue. First, while religious freedom abuses are frequent and alarming, no administration has fully honored or fulfilled the act. Second, the act needs updating. The global terrain for religious freedom has changed dramatically since 1998, but the act has not. As a result, the United States is increasingly behind the curve on major foreign policy challenges related to ongoing violations of religious freedom, new religion/state questions, and spreading violent religious extremism. The U.S. government is not well positioned or resourced to engage effectively.

It is incredibly important that America take action now to “renew the commitment” to religious freedom. However, reenergizing American efforts will take a dedicated push. It will require the president, the secretary of state, other senior U.S. officials, and members of Congress to consistently stress the importance of international religious freedom and back it up in public statements and private meetings here and abroad. U.S. officials must continuously affirm how religious freedom is a right for all human beings, be they members of religious minorities or majorities, or members of no religious group at all.

The United States can and should use existing tools to greater effect. The International Religious Freedom Act created a unique human rights mechanism to help advance this fundamental freedom in the form of the “country of particular concern” (CPC) designations. It serves as a blacklist of sorts for the worst religious freedom violators worldwide. Yet what the law intended to be an annual process has fallen off the rails, with designations being announced by the State Department at longer intervals — two or more years. The report recommends that CPC designations be made annually, and if the State Department does not act, Congress should take legislative steps to require annual designations.

Besides having an annual process, the CPC list should expand and contract as conditions warrant. Today’s eight CPC countries — Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan — have remained on the list for between eight and 15 years. USCIRF also recommends that eight more countries be added — Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. The growing disparity in the lists suggests that CPC designations are not keeping up with conditions on the ground.

Coupled with smart diplomacy and the potential for consequences for religious freedom violators, an annual CPC process can generate political will in foreign capitals to bring about concrete improvements. But USCIRF is also clear in saying that U.S. government activity on religious freedom should not be limited to naming “countries of particular concern.” U.S. efforts to promote freedom of religion or belief need to be multifaceted, looking to bolster reformers and supporting those pushing for change.

The United States cannot and should not go at it alone on this issue. This year’s report recommends that the government continue vigorous, multilateral religious-freedom engagement at the United Nations and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. We also urge the U.S. government to partner with other governments and parliaments to build a global religious freedom coalition. There are ready partnerships to be had — see Canada’s notable focus on international religious freedom, as well as increasing European interest both in the British and European parliaments, as well as in governments in Berlin, The Hague, London, and Oslo.

Fifteen years ago, the International Religious Freedom Act was ahead of its time in recognizing that religious freedom should be a key foreign policy concern. Today, with its mechanisms underutilized and global conditions even more complex, it’s time to reinvigorate America’s commitment. The United States needs to recommit itself to the vigorous, flexible, principled, and effective international religious freedom policy the act envisioned. Reenergized U.S. engagement, together with new partnerships with like-minded countries, can create new momentum for positive change.

Religious liberty is a civil right and should be part of any human rights organization. Almost daily there are reports of attacks on Christians in the Middle East. China has an ongoing campaign to stamp out the domestic Christian home church movement. And we know there’s consistent pressure here in the US to push Christians out of the public square.

It’s past time to update the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and get active in the fight against religious persecution.

AnantaAndroscoggin

I’m grown very tired of hearing about how religious freedom means that only Christians have any freedom, and that they are free to force people of all other religions or no religion at all to convert to Christianity. This is a sick and self-serving misinterpretation of the constitution’s First Amendment, propagated by the professional perjurers of the Reactionary Christianist Reich, the Dobsons, the Liberty Universities, and their ilk. Few are so un-American as these people who continuously bleat their lies, and of their ambitions to turn this country into a Police Theocracy.

Virginia already has a law which can put a cop into every obstetrician’s examination rooms, to insure their evil and invasive unnecessary medical prodeducre law is actually carried out by doctors, who are NOT meant to be agents of the state.